Yates statement came in the backdrop of the Government of Bahrain’s assurance that visitors for this month’s Formula One Bahrain Grand Prix will find safe and stable conditions, IAA in a statement said.
To support the government’s safety assurance, the IAA wishes to direct attention to comments made by John Yates, former assistant commissioner in the London Metropolitan Police Service, and current adviser to Bahrain’s police, to the Associated Press in regards to the F1: “It is very much hoped that the policing will be low key and discreet. But if there are problems, [the police] … must be able to escalate their response if need be. People can be assured that if problems arise, and then there will be a plan to deal with that as there would be with any public event in the world.”
Yates added that there remains to be “pockets of violence” in Bahrain but said that 95 percent of the country is safe.
“It’s a really important event for this country. It’s hugely important for the economy. There is nothing that in any way warrants for the race to be postponed,” he added.
Yates’ analysis matches up with comments from the Lotus Formula One Team, which The Telegraph reported as saying that day-to-day life in Bahrain is “pretty normal”.
As the government has said many times, protests continue in distant villages and a small number of these protests turn violent. As displayed last night, the occasional use of Molotov cocktails by this small number of rioters against police resulted in serious injury. The perpetrators of this violence are criminals and are treated as such but the government stresses that no person who was not a rioter or police officer has been injured in the infrequent and remote clashes like the one that took place on Monday night.